Doctor Who: Space Babies Review - 7 Ups & 3 Downs

It's been almost five months since Ruby Sunday took her first steps inside the TARDIS, and now, finally, we get to see what happens next.

It's very clear that we were supposed to get Space Babies in January, given the strong thematic links with The Church on Ruby Road and an ending that takes us back to Christmas Eve. Russell T Davies said as much in his DWM column, stating that the intricacies of the VFX work delayed his desired January launch of Doctor Who Season 40/Series 14/Season 1 (delete as applicable).

For good or ill, Space Babies feels like a throwback to the series openers of the RTD1 era – a paper thin premise that allows plenty of time for the Doctor and their new companion to find their feet.

And yet, Space Babies is bolder and madder than a New Earth or a Partners in Crime. A Doctor Who story that references both Ray Bradbury's butterfly effect and Raymond Briggs' Fungus the Bogeyman, while also sneaking in some astute political commentary.

While it won't be to everyone's tastes, Space Babies is a strong indicator that while RTD may be back in the showrunner's chair, his Doctor Who feels different this time.

The 1996 Paul McGann movie was heavily criticised for being bogged down in exposition, but it's got nothing on Ncuti Gatwa's sprawling monologue about being the last of the Time Lords.

As the Doctor rattles off exposition about the Rani, the Timeless Child, the Master's Time Lord genocide, and Gallifrey, it feels like the uninitiated viewers at home should have a notepad and pen.

It's even stranger when you take into account that the Doctor will be repeating much of the same information to Poppy in a scene that makes far more sense in the context of the episode.

As a result of the Doctor reading out his Wikipedia page, we lose Ruby's introduction to the TARDIS under a deluge of clunky callbacks. She can't ask daft questions about how the TARDIS works because she's too busy reeling from the Doctor sharing every painful detail about his lives so far.

The show's called Doctor Who, not Doctor Too Much Information!